The Singing City
by InsightfulMagician
Summary: Every Magical Girl has their own way to relax and momentarily forget about all the stress of demon-hunting and seeing their friends killed. Homura's way of relaxing is a bit more mundane than one might think.


The city prattled on. Footsteps and car horns and the relentless laughter and chatter of the thousands of residents in Mitakihara all united to create a resonating rant of perfect, systematic chaos that no one ever listened to. No one but Homura.

None could doubt that Homura had become strong amongst the seemingly endless time cycles that she's had to endure. Seeing her one and only friend suffer so horribly; trying to protect her and failing; and — the most horrible part of it all — losing Madoka forever, fating her to be a mere concept rather than a person: these had all churned the wilting violet that she once was into the veteran Magical Girl she was today. She could handle stress as well as any of her comrades, if not better. Yet even she had to admit that the responsibilities pushed upon her and her comrades were nothing short of daunting, especially with the recent increase of the demon population.

Homura shuddered as she thought of the recently enlisted Magical Girl. She didn't even know her name.

In any case, Homura was far from immune to the ever-present worry for not only her life, but the lives of her comrades and the citizens of Mitakihara. So it was here, observing these citizens atop one of the city's many impressive skyscrapers, that she found a small respite from those worries, her own personal oasis found in looking through the detached lens of a Magical Girl into another world— a world that she had left behind, but would never forget.

It was true that Homura had once hated other people— not personally, of course, but merely as a concept of "everyone else". In truth, Homura supposed that it might have just been an unfair projection of her own insecurities onto others. She always feared looking like a fool in public from even the slightest mistakes. She hated to be wrong in academics and hated to be found as insufficient in athletics but, even worse, she hated all the minor mistakes she'd make: fumbling with her pencil due to a slip of the fingers; forgetting to cover her mouth when she had to yawn; tripping only slightly due to an unexpected obstacle on the floor. She always felt as though every person in the room could see what she had done and had judged her for every moment of it. And, of course, there were people who actually _did_ judge her for it. Gossips, after all, were unavoidable in even the most sophisticated middle schools. It was these girls, whispering when Homura was clearly in earshot, that she truly hated more than anything. After all, who were _they_ to condescend her and judge her and scrutinize? Who were they to decide that one's worth as a human being was decided by knowing mathematical theorems and being proficient at running around a circle made of clay? Did they really believe that life was so simple that there were useful and useless people and that _they_, being oh, _so_ special, would have the perfect knowledge on who fit into these convenient categories? Yes, Homura loved to stew in the pure hatred of this kind of arrogance— the arrogance of youth, of pampered brats who knew nothing of real terror. They knew nothing of the smell of sanitation and bland hospital rooms and the insufferable murmuring, muffled voices of the nurses and social workers.

Yet Homura had discovered something at one point, when she was resting among one of the time loops, lost in thought within the calm eye of the turbulence that she had to suffer for ages. She had realized that those girls had done nothing wrong, really. People are as they are, and those girls were no different. They could not help but make judgments on Homura's clumsiness, as much as Homura could not help but feel as though everyone was watching her. Both ways of thinking are clearly wrong, yet they did it anyway. Why? Homura could not imagine herself without that feeling of inferiority. Even now, as she stands stoic amongst her comrades, an unyielding source of strength for them, she still had that feeling of constantly being criticized. Though she conceals it well, she knows how that feeling will never die— not entirely. The same must be true for the girls' tendency to gossip. Perhaps they too are insecure of something. Perhaps they only gossip to make themselves feel better, even if it seems harsh. Perhaps they speak to each other of Homura's flaws to say to themselves, "Oh, I shouldn't be so hard on myself. She's a total klutz! She's just as imperfect as I am." And even if they gossiped for malign reasons, only to hurt Homura's feelings, what would being angry accomplish? It would be better, she thought, to assume that they are just as damaged as she is and accept their terrible habits, just as she wished to desperately for hers to be accepted by others. Homura felt, as a warmth spread through her chest, that Madoka would probably like that idea.

So as Homura looked down at the people of Mitakihara, rather than hatred, she saw them with an alien fascination. She wondered what it would have been like to become a businesswoman, to go out drinking with cohorts as a grown, mature woman. She wondered how she would have developed as a person without the influence of this nightmarish contract. She wondered if, in some universe where fate had more compassion, she would be one of the many people walking and laughing and chatting on the paved blocks of Mitakihara, and it would be some other girl — perhaps even the one she witnessed getting torn limb from limb the other day — looking down at her with fascination.

Yet Homura could not find happiness in daydreams alone. In addition to thinking of what could have been, Homura relished in how all of the people walking down the sidewalks were just as damaged as she was. They all had their insecurities and ugly habits that they hated and wished they could be rid of, just like her and the gossiping girls. She had long abandoned the life of normalcy that they all lived, but she realized that those people still had similarities to her, that she was still human. She had hopes and fears and dreams and insecurities just as they did. She had a soul. And for the first time in years, Homura felt truly happy in her own right. It wasn't happiness created by a friend, not even Madoka, but happiness and confidence in herself that she had found all on her own.

Mitakihara sang to her, chirping and humming a song of normal chaos that she would never have, and Homura listened to it, gently smiling with wonder and empathy.


End file.
